version: $Id: RunningTP.txt,v 1.9 2011/04/19 15:45:44 pteuben Exp $ Some notes on Using BTP with PTT (Peter's Tourney Tools) ========================================================= PREPARATION =========== The TourneyTools are able to take a players registration list (those emails that contains "keyword=value" pairs) into the various text files for preparing registration and import into TP. We've used a variety of formats for a number of years now (dcopen, njopen, mida and also Koshy's format from the PA website). For each event, which we normally call something like "ms-A", it will produce a ms-A.list file as well as a ms-A.csv (comma separated value) file. Sadly, TP does not like the latter one, so they need to be transformed into excel (.xls) files to automate the import into TP. Luckily there is also a tool to do this automatically in OpenOffice, see the csv2xls shell script, although it is not too much labor to convert a "csv" file into an "xls" file. It's quite possible you can also do this on a windows box, or mac, but my current experience is solely with linux. The XLS files can be imported into TP once you have established a tournament, and you have created events and told it the size (16 or 32 or even 64 teams). There is somewhere in the 2nd or 3rd pulldown at the top an IMPORT action <> One comment on singles vs. doubles: for doubles a pair is defined by two consequative lines, e.g. line 1 and 2 are the first pair, line 3 and 4 are the 2nd pair etc. When you import this XLS file it is thus very important to click on that button in the lower left to "link up pairs" (or whatever it's called), otherwise you'll have a big mess. Also, PTT puts the male first in mixed doubles, these are IBF requirements. INSTALLATION ============ Make sure you have the correct licence for BTP. The two files, TP.DAT and TP.PD need to be in "Program Files/Visual Reality/BTP/" WORKFLOW ======== 1) create a new tournament Tournament ->New ? it is adviced to use a folder in the default location BTP suggest, and maybe make a shortcut to this folder from the desktop, otherwise BTP keeps forcing you to navigate too much through the filesystem) It likes "My Documents/Tournaments" ->template1.tp 2) Add properties Under 'Events', add (or pick) events. No size of the draw is needed yet, and the events can also be imported from another tournament. -> template2.tp 3) Now for each event in the [Roster] do the following: (it helps to click on [Roster] on the left side, and select each event) Draw->Add Draw select Elimination, ->Next Select size (2,4,8,16,32,...), confirm name, no Playoff 3/4, -> Next Select 'First Match' (3rd bullet, need this each time) -> Next Select columns 'MemberID' and 'State' for the layout -> Next Finish at this stage these events still have 0 entries of course Once this is done, it's perhaps best to save this file in a template. Be sure when you do this, you CLOSE the database (the tournament), then go into explorer,and copy/paste to make that backup. This is very important, otherwise the copy is probably not sane. -> template3.tp 4) Now foreach event you the enter the players: Player->Import Entries ->Browse ; to your XLS file ->next (the default fields should be correct, but check on your first import) NEXT a few time until you have to select the Event select the event you want to have this imported to. IF THIS IS A DOUBLES EVENT, MAKE SURE YOU ALSO CHECK OFF THE 'Link partners in odd and even rows' on the lower left of the entry form. ->Finish if you now click on the Entries tab of this draw, you should see the newly imported players Now proceed and double click on the players/teams that are to be seeded There is a "Seed:" entry for this once the 'Entry properties' are open. -> OK repeat this for 1, 2, 3/4 and 5/8. since there are no Shadow-Seed options for this program, the next level of 3/4, 5/8, 9/16 .... will have to be used I don't see an option to rank by state. Draw->Make Draws select 'Separation' by 'State' in one of the selections that will come up look at the draw, if not happy, try 'Re-make Draw' or go ->Back and try something else.... most likely manually swap players. See below, since that's a bit tricky. 5) It is also possible to manually modify a draw, as follows: From the left 'Draws' click on a draw and on the right you'll see the draw Suppose A and B need to be swapped, do this: highlight A, right click, Delete Entry (entry is actually put aside for later re-entry) highlight B, right click, Delete Entry highlight the spot where A was, right click, Select Entry now select B, and OK this highlight the spot where B was, right click, Select Entry now select A, and OK this Reminder of color codes the draws will have: grey - nothing done, event just exists, nothing else next step would be "Draw->Add Draw" orange - after draw was added (size and elimination type given) next step would be "Player->Import entries" then "Draw->Make Draw" yellow - after entries added and draws made Now go right-click->Schedule Match or right-click->Schedule Round blue - some scheduling done continue with this scheduling green - all done with scheduling dark grey - all events have been played red - something bad, e.g. players important but no 6) Now that your have all entries in the draws, you can setup the times to play, the courts, the gyms, order or play etc.etc. Outside the current scope. MAKEING THE DRAWS ================= We do 8 seeds and 8 shadow seeds (those are never published) for 32 players, and 4 seeds plus 4 shadow if we have 16 players. For below power of 2, fall back to the power of two below the count. So for 31 we use 4 seeds and 4 shadow. CURRENT FLAWS: ============= TourneyTools doesn't use USAB numbers, but defines a uniq player ID which we use during the tournament. They are 1 .. number_of_players in the tournament, and for other reasons are defined by when they registered (1 being the first, N being the last). Sometimes comes in handy if you have to give preference based on this rank. But they are NOT the player number the players see, those are from an alphabetical listing of players. My fault/feature: if you import just the main list and not a 'w'(wait) list, you will wind up having to import them again. better to have them all in there,and the bottom one are on waiting list. FILES: ====== template1 only named the tournament "dcopen", added the logo template2 added the usual dcopen {ms,ws,md,wd,xd}-{A,C,S} events template3 added the sizes (32,16,32,16,32) A,C and (16,4,16,4,16) S template4 added courts and timeslots (13, 26, 26) template5 imported the A's other tips: CutePDF is a good PDF writer for Windows BullzipPDFPrinter is another one. - random notes: on times: use 1-day, and start and step and number of steps 16:30 - 23:30 is 13 steps of 30 08.15 - 22:50 is 26 steps of 35 08:30 - 15:30 is 13 steps of 35